Romania and Polish-Soviet War of 1919/1920, Did Romania support Poland?

Because I read some time ago the book "White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-20 and The Miracle on the Vistula" written by Norman Davies, and I found here some posts in which forum members (relatively few, indeed) expressed their opinion that Romania played a key role in Central Europe in 1919 by crushing the Hungarian communist revolution, I decided to open this discussion to have a true picture of the impact of Romanian action comparable with that of Poland a year later. I created a separate topic because I want also to emphasize Romania's role in this conflict (1919 - 1920 Communist Russia vs. Poland). At first to be well understood I want to say that my intended purpose is not to overshadow the Romanian military action against bolshevik Hungary but to place it in the right position without exaggeration or denigration!

At the same time there are many similarities with the Romanian-Hungarian conflict of 1919 from the historical, territorial, cultural and religious point of view, but differing essentially in the ability of the two communist countries (Hungary in spring summer 1919 and Russia in 1919-1920) to use their military power and ideological influence to expand their control over neighboring states. Seriously speaking while Hungary was virtually harmless in terms of the military compared to its neighbors Russia was very dangerous, despite the fact that she just escaped from a devastating civil war after an even more devastating world war.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Rumania's 1918-1919 military expedition was an anti-Hungarian war, not an anti-Bolshevik "crusade". As I said, had the Hungarian government that came to power in March 1919 been a Green one instead of a Red one, the Rumanian army would still attacked and eventually entered Budapest. So the parallel of the Rumanian-Hungarian war to the Polish-Soviet war has no merit.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 06, 2013 06:37 am

Denes, this is precisely what I say, because I also believe that the Romanian-Hungarian War of 1919 was surely not an ideological conflict but one related to territory. I actually supported this viewpoint in an earlier post. On the other side similarities exist, because I am convinced that the Communist Ideology which was meant to be exported through the Red Army was a credible excuse to disguise Russia's expansionist tendencies! My point was however different: withstand a serious analysis the claims of some Romanian politicians and generals that Romania has played an important role in braking the Bolshevik expansion in Central Europe or this is just exaggeration or propaganda?

Provided your "green" government would have still attacked the Romanian troops, yes, perhaps they could have occupied Budapest as well; although, on second thought, perhaps the "Allied HQ" (or whatever one wants to name it) wouldn't have been so scared as it was, by the (now) distant possibility of cooperation between the Soviets and the Red Hungarians...
Basically, that is the question: would a "Green" leadership still have attacked Romania?

Without a "Green" soviet support I doubt.

I doubt it, because there were hundreds and hundreds of km to Rumania. Remember, Rumanian troops were deep inside Hungary in April 1919.

Gen. Dénes

P.S. What do you mean by "your" government?

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 06, 2013 02:10 pm

Another point to be considered is whether it was serious or not the Soviet military threat to Romania following the changed situation in Western and Southern Russia (Polish Army advance and also the Caucasus and the Volunteer Army under command of Gen. Denikin) in summer 1919? Those that know how the military operations were going in Russia, realize that a commitment of the Red Army to Romanian Theatre of Operations was quite unlikely at that time (june-july 1919), so I don't really understand why some further supports the story about the Red Army threat to Romania in summer 1919.

This post has been edited by aidan zea on February 06, 2013 02:44 pm

Gentleman please, if I wanted debates on this topic I would have posted them in the open discussions about f.i. " Romanian-Hungarian War 1918-1919" or "1st December 1918" but I don't! I think I was pretty clear about what I want to discuss, and if I wasn't I point now:
- a conjugated Russian-Hungarian military action against Romania in summer 1919 was technically possible or not? I mean the practical support of the Red (Russian) Army to the Red (Hungarian) Army was or not credible, taking into account the evolution of the military situation in Western and Southern Russia at that time?
- what effective support offered Romania to Poland (f.i. military, logistic, political or something else) after the onset of major Red Army offensive in end may-early june 1920?

I mention the fact that I had read somewhere that the initiated military action on the Tisza line from 20 July 1919 was based on a written promise of Lenin adressed to Kun that the Red (Russian) Army will cross the Dniester and attack. Does anyone know something more about it?

An off topic discussion was split to clean up this topic.

Regarding the possible Bolshevik (in 1919 I am not so sure we can talk about a Soviet Union yet) invasion, the issue was discussed relatively recently in a different topic. In my opinion, taking into account the situation in the Ukraine at that time, it was highly unlikely. There were some attempts to cross the Dnestr Estuary and attack Cetatea Alba, but they were repulsed by several Romanian gunboats.

There were many atempts over Dniestr, especialy in 1919. First, the one against Hotin, Bolsheviks were defeated after 2 weeks of fighting. During this one was KIA general Stan Poettas. Another one was in May, at Tighina (Bender), when the French troops (colonial ones) were defeated and the situation was restored by Romanians. After this event, French troops were sent to France.
Until 1924 were many incidents, majority of them simple raids, but were many real battles who implied regiments and lasted many days (until 2 weeks). In 1924 was Tatar Bunar rebelion, the most complex event.

This general, Stan Poetaş, was featured on the exterior cover of "Istoria Militară a Poporului Român, volumul VI"; on the inside, in the same book (printed, btw, in 1989) there was the map of Romania at the beginning of WW2, thus including the territories which were to be lost in 1940. On the territory of Czechoslovakia there is also the mention "occupied by horthyst Hungaria", so there it is: an official derrogatory mentioning of the regime in Hungary. Unfortunately for Ceauşescu - and fortunately for the rest of Romania - the nationalistic card played in the last years (anti-Soviet, anti-Hungarian) hasn't had the success needed.

Unfortunately, Ceausescu's national-Communist ideology, propagated mainly in the second half of the 1970s and 1980s, left a deep impact in Rumanian society, which reverberates even today (including the perception of history - see, for example the name Cluj-Napoca, concocted by Ceausescu and still in existence today). But that's off topic again.

Gen. Dénes

In was not an anti-Soviet move, the regime don't go so far. Btw, the 1989 edition of Constantin Kiritescu History of ww1, was incomplete. In those interbelic editions were described and mentioned the battles against Bolsheviks in Moldova in 1918, in 1989 edition not.

That would've been way too much! Things didn't go like that... they weren't on a forum
What's more important, if the anti-soviet current went too far, the entire regime could have been questioned and that was "out-of-the-question"!
From what I've read about the military plans of the 1921-onwards Polish-Romanian alliance, we had to put up roughly the same number of divisions in case of a Soviet attack, but the plans did not foresee a frontal, full-scale onslaught like it was the case in 1939 in Poland or could've been in 1940 in Romania.
LE: Victor, in 1919 there was the "Soviet Russia" name; the name of USSR came into use only in december 1922.

This post has been edited by MMM on February 08, 2013 04:17 pm